


KNOWING YOUR HEART

by Anne_Fairchild



Category: Red Cap (TV)
Genre: Angst, Jealousy, M/M, Relationship Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 01:18:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15984518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anne_Fairchild/pseuds/Anne_Fairchild
Summary: Out together for the evening, all of Thomas’s insecurities about his age and his differences from Giles surface when a total stranger spends the evening ogling Giles.





	KNOWING YOUR HEART

**Author's Note:**

> The only Giles/Thomas story that should be read first is To Thine Own Self Be True; the others don’t *have* to be read in order.

It had been a long week for both Giles and Thomas, so this particular Friday night was perhaps more appreciated that others as a chance to leave work behind and relax. As was often the case, Thomas chose the restaurant. He knew the city better than Giles did of course. Generally, he and Giles enjoyed the same sort of places - dark and woody, old-fashioned and quiet, where a well-prepared meal and good wine could be found. Neither of them were into the club scene, or a loud party atmosphere.

Giles, Thomas Strauss thought, looked good enough to eat. Not that he didn’t always, but tonight he wore dark blue trousers tailored delightfully across his _Hintern_ , a darkish rust-colored sweater, and a double-breasted navy wool coat that Giles told him was for some reason called a pea coat, though the name had nothing to do with peas.

They slipped into a booth with a view of the old-fashioned bar and ordered drinks before dinner - a G&T for Giles and for Thomas a long drink of whisky and soda.

They told each other of their day, and started to unwind. Giles laughed aloud at something Thomas said. As Thomas contentedly drank in his cheerful, animated smile, he caught a glimpse of someone staring at them - at Giles - from the bar. Thomas slipped his arm around Giles’s waist, under his sweater; no one could see them outright, but Thomas knew the man at the bar would observe the gesture. Giles looked over at him, his head slightly lowered but his eyes all for Thomas, and grinned.

“Ooh, the romance is beginning early tonight,” he murmured. “I like it.” He had never once taken his eyes off either Thomas or their table, so he had no idea he was being appraised and genteely undressed by a stranger. Thomas resisted the urge to lean over and kiss him on the nose.

The man at the bar was, he judged, was older than Giles by a few years but also younger than he was by some years; the ’right age’ for Giles compared to him. He was well-dressed and well-groomed, with the same unconscious air of privilege that Giles also projected to a lesser degree.

He was good-looking, but there was something about him that Thomas sensed would not mesh well with his own personality. He would expect the upper hand, this man. He would want to call the shots. There was also something ever so slightly predatory in his assessment of Giles that annoyed Thomas. Giles was delightfully uninhibited with Thomas because he knew he could trust him. Whether it was his policeman’s eye or a lover’s eye Thomas wasn’t sure, but he would never trust this man not to hurt someone either emotionally or physically or both.

At a couple of points during the evening, Giles did look around the room and his gaze crossed with the stranger’s. He neither looked away nor held the man’s gaze, but appeared to simply register him as a warm body and nothing more. He did, however, let his hand cover Thomas’s now and then under the table, and came very close to nuzzling his neck after they had polished off a bottle of wine.

Thomas wanted very badly to take Giles home and make serious love to him, to blot out the mental picture of this attractive stranger lusting after the sweet, sexy young man he had begun to think of as ‘his’. The man’s pointed attention was forcing Thomas to think of things he’d been ignoring since he and Giles had met.

They ate dinner, and Giles behaved as if he was not aware of anything out of the ordinary. He was charming and funny and ever so slightly tipsy; Thomas would be driving home.

The man sat at the bar drinking throughout their meal, focused on Giles. Thomas would not glare at him, he was neither that immature nor that insecure, at least in public. He did however find ways to send out subtle messages. It was a bit tricky since they were not in an establishment with a predominantly gay clientele, but Thomas was as direct as he could be.

Giles, seemingly oblivious to the potential drama, was drinking in the attention and responding playfully under the table.

“I hope you’re not _too_ awfully tired, Thomas” was said with lowered lashes framing large caramel eyes that Thomas could get lost in, and a rather saucy smile.

“Oh, do not worry your…head…about that, _mein geile Hase_ ,” Thomas purred. “I will be happy to stay up very late with you.” His hand moved to Giles’s inner thigh, his thumb brushing not all that lightly over his groin. He was quite pleased at the flush he saw rising into Giles’s face.

“Good to know,” Giles smiled. “Do you want a coffee and cognac, or shall we go?”

“What would you like?” Thomas asked.

“For you to take me home and fuck me into next week,” Giles returned sweetly, touching his nearly empty wine glass to Thomas’s with a soft clink. It was Thomas’s turn to feel the heat rising up his neck.

“How fortunate that your wish and mine coincide so perfectly, _Hase_.” Thomas signaled the waiter for their bill. As they walked out, just for a moment as they exited past the man at the bar, Thomas let his hand brush Giles’s ass and Giles then leaned against him for a second. _So mine,_ Thomas thought fiercely, at the same time the long-stifled worries returned with a vengeance.

When they got in the car, Thomas started the engine and turned on the heater. Then he turned in his seat and without a word pulled Giles to him by the collar of his coat. His kiss was hungry and more than a little desperate, a sliver of fear sneaking in. When he let Giles go, they were both gasping for air.

“Wow. Just…wow,” Giles huffed, his eyes glittering with anticipatory lust. “How fast can we get home?”

“Not fast enough,” was Thomas’s reluctant reply as he backed out of the car park.

They only kept their hands off each other while they rode the elevator because they knew it had a CCTV camera. Once inside the door of the flat, they started stripping so that by the time they hit the bedroom it was quick work to nakedness.

Giles was beginning to realize that something he didn’t understand was motivating Thomas tonight, though this was hardly the time to bring it up. He responded with equal passion, happy to let whatever it was take them to what promised to be a very satisfying conclusion. He’d wonder about the what and why later; the here and now was hot enough to burn.

Thomas was so focused that Giles was hardly able to respond in mutual kind, so he just let go and let Thomas. He didn’t like feeling selfish, but Thomas was very much a man on a mission. He wasn’t rough but this wasn’t leisurely romance, it was definitely intense. Thomas pleasured him as perfectly as he always did, but Giles had a sense that it was a means to an end for something tonight.

Thomas fumbled in the bedside drawer and opened the tube of lubricant. He spread it liberally on his cock and around Giles’s opening. Kneeling between Giles’s open thighs, he pressed in, fully sheathing himself. Giles groaned with lust, tightening his legs around his lover’s waist as Thomas stroked inside him, taking possession of his body. Giles never ceased to revel in that possession, and the knowledge that the person he loved, loved him just as passionately in return. That something specific might be driving Thomas tonight had no effect on Giles’s pleasure or his feelings, nor did he feel objectified; he knew Thomas better than that.

Thomas shuddered and released himself into Giles, letting go of some of the tension which had been building in him all evening. When he realized that Giles was silently pleasuring himself, however, instead of saying anything to him, Thomas knew he’d crossed a boundary he’d never intended to or wanted to cross. Giles was always quick to gauge his moods.

“Forgive me, _mein Schatz,_ ” he murmured remorsefully, stilling Giles’s hand and taking him into his mouth.

Giles reached up and stroked his hair. “ _Est is in Ordnung, liebe,_ ” he returned, closing his eyes and enjoying every sensation. He tried to hold himself back to prolong the pleasure, but could not; Thomas could play him like a violin.

After they had both lain in silence for awhile, Giles guided Thomas’s head to his shoulder, caressing his arm, soothing and calming.

“Are you going to tell me?” he asked softly. Thomas sighed, but said nothing.

“Something is troubling you,” Giles coaxed, pressing a kiss to his hair.

“There are things I must say. Things you will not want to acknowledge and that I don’t like saying…or feeling,” Thomas admitted.

“All right - that’s a start,” Giles led, rubbing Thomas’s back.

“There was a man at the bar tonight,” Thomas began. “He was - he was undressing you with his eyes. Very plainly, he wanted you. I saw it, and he saw that I saw, but it did not stop him.”

“There was a man, yes, but I hardly noticed him. I certainly wasn’t flirting with him,” Giles responded, puzzled.

“I know you weren’t,” Thomas sighed. “But - “

“But you were jealous?” Giles guessed.

“Yes I was jealous. Of course I was.”

“But if you have no reason to be jealous - ?”

“ _Liebe_ , you are still young, while I am not so young,” Thomas burst out. “That man was…the proper age for you. Not old, like me. And if not today, one day there will be a younger man you will be attracted to. Someone who is much more like you than like me. One whose diapers you will not have to change some day.”

Ohh, Giles thought. _This_ conversation. The difference in their ages meant nothing at all to him, but he supposed he could see how it might seem very important to Thomas.

“Thomas, I have no reason to look at anyone else. I love _you_ , and you give me everything I could ever want,” Giles assured him. “As for taking care of you, if that’s ever needed - it will be my loving pleasure.”

“But - you can’t say always, or never. You cannot know that now. You have not lived enough years to know that,” Thomas protested.

Now it was Giles’s turn to sigh.

“All my life, I’ve been told how I should think, and feel; what I must do for the sake of others. Self-sacrifice and obedience were all I knew,” he explained. “And then I met you, and - _I_ wanted. I wanted _you_ , more than anything I can remember wanting in my life. Enough to confront my father, to risk everything I had accomplished so far. Do you think I had no concept of what that could mean to me, forever, simply because of my age?” he asked, frustrated.

“But without many…contacts, how can you know which person you should end with?”

Thomas was going to be stubborn in his doubt, but that was a good thing; if every doubt was expressed now, he could get them out in the open to be dealt with.

“Before I met you, I’d been practically living like a monk. I could have gone to Schöneburg every weekend, if I just wanted to have sex and party,” he reminded Thomas. “I did that back in England, but it never made me happy, it just got me off and that was all. I can do that alone, Thomas. Maybe I’m different than most men, I don’t know,” he confessed, “but just shagging someone for the sake of it doesn’t do anything for me. It never made me happy.

“I fell in love with you before we ever had sex. I love you for all the things you are to me. The sex is amazing because of the love; I can’t separate it, and there isn’t one without the other. I don’t _want_ one without the other - I don’t think like that - ever, Thomas; I’m not put together that way,” Giles explained. “It’s something I just know, and it isn’t going to change as I grow older. You are The One, I feel it in my soul.”

“You can’t…you can’t want a grumpy old nursemaid worrying over you; you will soon tire of that,” Thomas continued. “You won’t always want a…”

“Parent?” Giles finished for him. He was on firmer ground now. He raised himself on one elbow and spoke to Thomas’s worried eyes.

“The dynamics of our relationship are what makes me happiest of all, Thomas. Your caring, looking after me, guiding me - it’s what drew me to you in the first place - your nurturing. But you’re not a substitute for my father, and I definitely don’t think of you that way. My father would have a stroke if he knew the half of how you make me feel,” Giles grinned, “including tonight.”

“Ask yourself - do I _always_ let you take the lead? Do I always look to you for direction in everything? Or do I take the initiative when I want to. Do I make decisions that affect both of us? Do you always direct our sex life?” Giles persisted. “I do as I want to do, _Liebste_. And most often, what I want to do is what you decide. I _like_ doing as you suggest, Thomas. You’re not forcing me, or dominating me, and I’m not unhappy. You make me feel loved,” he smiled. “I can’t explain it any better. But it isn’t going to change, not even when you’re 90 and I’m 76,” he assured Thomas.

“If you’re jealous, it pleases me in a way - how could it not? - but it also makes me sad, _Kuschelbär_. I will never want anyone else, _Suße_. Believe me,” he pleaded, kissing Thomas softly on the lips.

Thomas searched his gaze for a long moment in silence, but finally smiled a little and returned the kiss, not deepening it but moving to drop the same soft kiss on nose, chin, eyelids and forehead before speaking. When he did speak it was only two words, hoarse with emotion.

“I believe.”

It was what he’d hoped to hear, rather than Thomas simply going silent and giving up but still worrying, and Giles never knowing when the subject would come up again.

“ _Du teilst meine Seele,_ ” Thomas whispered fiercely, pulling Giles into his arms.

“Yes,” Giles smiled against his chest. “You do understand. _Mo anam cara,_ ” he whispered back.

“What does it mean?” Thomas asked. “What language?”

“It’s Irish. My mother’s parents are from Ireland. It means the same - my soul friend, my soulmate. Someone who loves you and helps you, guides you through the rough spots of life. Someone who is One with you in everything,” Giles told him. “ ‘You share my soul’ - I like how it’s said in German.”

“It sounds nicer in Irish,” Thomas smiled.

“As long as we keep the meaning in our hearts always,” Giles murmured, “there should never be any doubts, yes?”

“Yes,” Thomas agreed. “Come, _meine Seele_ ,” I need you close to me.”

Giles moved himself to lie half atop Thomas, rooting contentedly beneath Thomas’s ear, their lower bodies lax in relaxed entanglement.

“ _Suße_ ,” Thomas murmured.

“Mmmmhmmm.”

“ _Gute nacht , liebling_ ” was the last thing Giles heard before he drifted off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> German Lesson:  
> Est is in Ordnung - it’s okay  
> geile hase - horny bunny  
> Herz - heart  
> Hintern - ass  
> Kuschelbär - cuddly bear  
> liebe, lieber - dear, sweet(ie), liebste - dearest  
> schätz - treasure  
> suße,Sußer - sweet
> 
> Du teilst meine Seele - you share my soul


End file.
